Tickets To Korea & Birthdays

At the travel agent:

Me & my Lioness have decided to go to Korea after my dilemma about whether we should go there, or to Europe or America. She's leaning towards Korea and since Korea is on my gotta-visit list too, just as well. Korean dramas had a lot to do with influencing her inclination, why am I not surprised?

When we were in Hakodate in Hokkaido on the night of 25th March, 2010, I made a solemn promise that I will bring my Lioness & myself back to the snow some day again. So going to Korea in January next year will allow me to make good that promise. Might as well fulfill my promise at the place she wants to visit so eagerly. I wonder how many merit points I'll be scoring with my Sweetheart for that.

So today, we went to Hong Thai Travel Services in Chinatown to buy our tour package to Korea since we were quite impressed with their Hokkaido package and their tour guide who took excellent care of us during our trip there last year. I hope the tour guide assigned to our Korea trip this time will be just as great.

The Korean DMZ (Demilitarized Zone - the border between North and South Korea) has always been a must-visit for me. So it's just too bad that the Hong Thai staff who attended to us told me that that place has been banned to tourists since last year. Why? Because some fool of a tourist tried running across the border and got shot to death by the North Korean border guards. The stupid fool has ruined the market and lost his life in the process, bugger that.

I'm seriously pissed with that. That's one wish of mine I gotta scrap off now all thanks to some masochistic suicidal mofo. Anyway, just in case you didn't know already, North and South Korea are still technically at war with each other since no concrete armistice were signed between the two ever since the Korean conflict.

We bought the tour package and will be flying off to Korea on the night of 6 January 2012 on the 23:00pm flight and will be flying back home on the 13th. The temperature there then is projected to be -15 degrees. That's gonna be freaking cold and I gotta make sure to get an additional proper winter coat for my Lioness since she only has one. It pained me to see her wearing the same coat everyday when we were in Hokkaido. Perhaps I'll get an extra one for myself too, we'll see.

And the reason why we have chosen January was because initially, we had a mind to spend Christmas there but the price difference between December, which is a travel peak period, and January is a few hundred dollars per person, ouch. Well, I won't mind spending Christmas at home anyway, we have the Xmas tree at home for standby, which is a lovely thing anyway.


Birthdays celebration with the family:

Right after we bought our tour package, we went over to Bumbu Restaurant at China Square for Thai and Indonesian cuisine with my family to celebrate the birthdays of my brother-in-law, my 2nd sis and myself. My bro-in-law & my birthday is upcoming and today is the official birthday of my 2nd sis.

My 10-years old niece Andrea gave me a birthday present which she wrapped up oh so nicely for me.
*Sniff* So sweet :')
I'll be unwrapping it to see what's in store for me on the actual day of my birthday. This is the 2nd time Andrea has given me a birthday present. Gosh, come to think if it, she must be my youngest fan since she was just 9 >:)

We were having buffet dinner and Bumbu's buffet system is such that we placed our orders with the waiters and waitresses, after which they would bring the dishes to us from the kitchen once they were ready. We just had to sit tight and wait to be served.

And it's difficult to take snapshots of the different dishes together because each cuisine was served in small portions that were snapped up quickly by everyone and there were 9 of us. We were hungry, so I couldn't torture my family by telling them not to dig in until all the dishes have arrived, can I?

Still, I did manage to take a shot for this blog entry but it ain't perfect since one of the dishes you see in the pic had only so much food left on it. Every dish except for a couple were delicious. Loved their fried eggs and omelette.

I just wished they could serve the dishes in bigger portions for bigger tables like ours. Because they didn't, it explains why they always had to hustle back & forth to the kitchen since every dish was obliterated by our many mouths quickly. They could have saved themselves some repeated trips to the kitchen otherwise.

I could tell the waiters and waitresses were kinda stressed out, serving every table with forced smiles while suppressing dormant wrath within themselves like dormant volcanos. Can't blame them for such self-induced torture brought about by their management's decision regarding serving plate sizes.


And right after our dinner, we brought out the cake. 3 candles for 3 wishes for each of us birthday boys & girl. 2nd sis was the one who made her wish first and she accidentally blew out all 3 candles at once. I guess she has strong lungs on her. So we had to relight the other 2.

Happy Birthday to us :)

The ladies heading up to the house

Mum & Andrea then came over to our place to stay for the night. They visited us many times already but this was the very first time they would be staying over. I'm happy because I'm always telling my mum that the doors of our house will always be open to her and finally, she & Andrea had a chance to stay over, even if it was just for a night. Our guest room has always been well-prepared for my mum & family anyway.

And now that my mum & Andrea have had a chance to stay over at our house, our love nest now has a more defined 'Family Flavour'. The next day, the 4 of us, together with my mum-in-law, went over to 店小二 over at Jurong Point for lunch. Oh, and before that, Andrea surprised me by requesting me to make more vlog videos, of which I've stopped doing for some time since I can't stand watching myself talk on camera.

Her request really took me by surprise and I was actually stunned there for awhile before I could answer her that I will see what I can do. Looks like there's at least one person in the world who can actually stand my nonsense.

After we have finished our food, mum got up from her seat and using the pretext that she wanted to look around, she went to the cashier in stealth mode to attempt to pay for the bill. But she couldn't fool past my Scorpionic intuition with her Scorpionic stealth and so, I raced past her and footed the bill myself instead. The whole lunch was over a hundred bucks.

Mum is always having my interest at heart and places her children above herself. It's our turn to take care of her.

I love you, mum.

That night, I walked into my guest room and found myself missing my mum & Andrea badly. There was a lump in my throat that I had to swallow hard..


- De Lion Speaks